The Temptation Test

by Meredith Webber

  Totally confused now, Noah took the magazine thrust at him and saw the article was headed by a large picture of Jena, but it was the heading, BIMBOS NEED NOT APPLY, that caught his attention. He felt new anger twisting his stomach as he read ‘industry whispers’ about a new television show which, according to the idiot reporter, wouldn’t be employing people like Jena.

  ‘I can’t believe people actually judge others by their looks!’ he growled, but he kept the magazine. A photo of Jena was better than nothing. ‘And you must be one of them—to make her stay out here as some kind of test.’

  Matt moved the handkerchief from his nose and peered at Noah.

  ‘She needed the experience for her own confidence,’ he protested thickly. ‘So she’d know she could do it!’

  He looked as if he wanted to add more, but for Noah the need to find Jena was growing more urgent by the moment. He headed back to the Jeep. She’d been upset. Where would she have gone?

  He drove to his place, but Greg and Rose hadn’t seen her since the previous afternoon. Back in the car, he looked again at the article, reading beyond the headlines. The reporter mentioned a previous position for which Jena had applied and been turned down, then went on to add statistics about how few models ever made it into the big time in other fields. The implication in the article was clear—models might have the faces and figures to be successful, but on the whole they were, the writer hinted, short on brains.

  Seething with indignation on Jena’s behalf, Noah drove back to town. Then indignation changed to heart-heavy despair as he thought about attitudes—including his own—and Jena’s dogged determination to prove herself. Her constant stream of ‘blonde’ jokes, he realised, were defensive, pre-empting what people might be thinking. Or what her experience suggested people might think.

  He considered returning to the hospital, but knew he had to get some sleep before he could do any effective work. Reluctantly he turned towards his house—which would feel empty and incomplete and would probably never be a home because he’d made such a hash of his life.

  He was so tired he walked past the LandCruiser without realising its significance. Jena was asleep on the lounger on the back verandah, curled up on her side, one hand under her cheek.

  Maybe the house would become a home after all, he thought, smiling down at her.

  Though once she heard he’d punched her boss and, no doubt, lost her all chance of the job she wanted so desperately…

  Her eyes opened as if his thoughts had prodded her awake, and the confusion he read in the vivid blueness made him kneel beside her and put his arms around her.

  ‘I didn’t want to be alone,’ she said, her voice more hesitant than he’d ever heard it.

  ‘You were alone here,’ he pointed out. ‘I hated having to leave you, not being able to comfort you when you needed it so badly.’

  ‘But you’ve had to do that so often,’ she murmured, moving her hand from beneath her head to rest it against his cheek. ‘See people you couldn’t save die, and not have anyone to comfort you. And I wasn’t alone. I felt you here. Felt you were near, although I knew you weren’t.’

  Noah heard the words and fancied he heard echoes of unspoken love behind them. He felt a wild irrational hope spring to life in his heart.

  Then remembered what he’d done out at the shack.

  ‘I’d have been here earlier, but I looked for you out by the lake—went there first.’ He hesitated, not wanting to put his doubts and fears into words, let alone admit his adolescent behaviour.

  ‘Matt Ryan was there!’

  Jena sat up with a jerk.

  ‘Matt, out at the lake! Damn! What could he possibly want?’

  ‘To see you,’ Noah suggested, as the myriad new feelings he was experiencing jolted him from tenderness back to grouch-mode.

  ‘About the job, I guess,’ Jena said, though she didn’t sound as excited as she should, considering what she’d been through to ‘prove’ herself!

  Noah tried to think of a way to tell her the next bit, but couldn’t come up with anything more than a blunt recitation of the truth.

  ‘I might have wrecked your chance of getting it,’ he mumbled, looking into her eyes as his own begged for understanding. ‘I punched him.’

  The frown she gave him didn’t even hint at understanding!

  ‘You punched him? Why on earth would you have punched Matt Ryan?’

  ‘Because he was there,’ Noah expounded, but Jena’s frown, instead of clearing, deepened.

  ‘You can’t go around punching people because they’re there,’ she told him. ‘Was it something from the past? I know the pair of you had a history.’

  Now it was Noah’s turn to frown, unable to believe the woman couldn’t work it out.

  ‘It was nothing to do with the past,’ he said crossly. ‘It was because he was there—with you. Or I thought he was there with you.’

  Now she had the hide to laugh.

  ‘You thought Matt and I—? That he was there with me?’

  She held her sides and laughed some more, which was when he realised she was wearing one of his shirts—and because buttons had come undone he knew there was nothing underneath it.

  Not now, he told his libido. Got to sort out a few things first.

  ‘Stop laughing,’ he snapped, then added, for good measure, ‘That’s my shirt.’

  She stopped laughing, though amusement still lurked in the sparkling depths of her eyes.

  ‘It was on the line. I had to throw away my clothes, then I washed under the tap and borrowed this.’

  He wanted to demand it back—right now. To peel it off her body, make love to her for about four days, then maybe rest and start again. But he still wasn’t certain where he stood with this love thing—or where Jena stood for that matter.

  She watched confusion and doubt chase like leaf shadows across his face, and because, when she’d sat with Minnie and he’d suddenly appeared, touched her cheek and with eyes that had told her all she wanted to know disappeared again, she took pity on him.

  She put her finger on his lips so he couldn’t blunder into disjointed conversation again, and began. ‘For a start, Matt Ryan is not at all interested in me as a woman. In fact, though you must never tell a soul, he’s very much in love with his partner Michael. Next, even if he did come to say I had the job, I’m not taking it. I’ve thought a lot about what you said, about challenges, and I know I need something, well, more real, I guess. I’m not certain what, as yet, but working with people.’

  She saw the soft glow of love light his eyes, but still she silenced him, although now her finger was moving over the contour of his lips and she wasn’t sure how long either of them would stand the tension.

  ‘Thirdly, we don’t know each other very well, and you have a lot of unresolved stuff to get through with your Lucy, but I’m reasonably certain what I want from you is much much more than a one-night stand. Maybe something in the vicinity of a fifty- or sixty-year stand. If that also appeals to you, and you’re sure your past is really past, then perhaps we could work together on the future.’

  He took her hand and kissed the tip of each finger in turn.

  ‘Are you proposing to me?’ he asked, husky-voiced with emotion.

  ‘Merely setting out some ground rules,’ she said, then she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. ‘Now, you look as if you’ve been up all night. How about you get some sleep? I’m going out to see Matt and get some clothes. We missed rehearsal yesterday afternoon, so we’ll have to have one tonight.’

  He looked at her with something like panic in his eyes.

  ‘But you’ll come back? Perhaps stay here? You’d be very welcome.’

  She grinned at him.

  ‘How else could we get to know each other?’ she teased.

  For a week that had started out so badly, it turned into one of sheer bliss. Having Jena in the house brought it to life in a way, he now realised, Lucy never would have. She brought him to life as well, fl
irting with him, winning laughter from him at the most unexpected times, delighting him in bed, taunting him when out of it, overwhelming him with the love she gave so freely and took so radiantly from him.

  ‘Come on, laziness,’ she chided, when he was trying to cling to the remnants of sleep while she trailed her hair along his spine. It was something that, she’d discovered, drove Noah wild, and in the end he turned over to avoid it and grabbed her in his arms.

  ‘No time for this,’ she told him firmly, although she nestled closer and pressed little kisses on his neck. ‘It’s Saturday. Carla and co. will be waiting for us up at the hospital. You’ve just enough time for breakfast before we get ready for the parade.’

  He suggested other forms of breakfast but she was firm, reminding him to wear his swim shorts under his clothes, as that was all she was allowing in the way of clothing for her statues. Draperies would also be used, but after the last couple of rehearsals he’d begun to wonder if he wouldn’t have been better taking his chances with the funny noses.

  There was something going on. Carla and co. had been giggly at the final rehearsal, and he suspected he was the only one not in on some joke.

  Not that much could happen on a parade float.

  They met the others in the large car park at the back of the hospital, where the float had been fitted to Jena’s vehicle. The hospital float was also having last-minute adjustments. It took two hours for the paint to be applied to Jena’s satisfaction, but having her covering his body with it had given him some ideas for future fun.

  ‘Does it have to go in the hair?’ he complained as she rubbed the stuff further and further in. It felt grittier against his scalp than it had on other parts of his skin, but as he had been told to keep quiet he daren’t ask her why.

  ‘Now, you all remember what you have to do?’ she demanded, when they were painted, hair and all, and standing in their initial poses between the pillars.

  Everyone made muted noises of assent, having been warned not to move their lips too much in case the paint cracked.

  ‘Great! Now, John’s driving and Kate’s navigating and she’ll call out the change.’ So far so good, Noah thought. He’d known John and Kate were returning to Kareela for the parade. In fact, all the crew were here as the hospital float would also be filmed.

  ‘I’ll walk beside the float in case there are any problems,’ Jena added, then she turned around and picked up a large cage with a white cockatoo inside it.

  Where had it come from? And why?

  Noah couldn’t ask, couldn’t even check that was what he’d seen, as the float moved off, going slowly down the street, heading towards the library where they’d fall in with the others before proceeding down the main street.

  He couldn’t see Jena now, but as they were passing a few people standing outside the hospital gates to get an early view of the float he put Jena, temporarily, out of his mind and concentrated on being a statue.

  They’d just reached the bulk of the crowd when a bird landed on his head, and the cries of delight from the onlookers reminded him not to move. He picked out patients he’d treated in the crowd, saw the McDonalds, Greg and Rose both smiling happily as they’d had confirmation of a new job for Greg the previous day. So many people, all clapping and laughing.

  But the bird remained.

  Maybe at the next change of position, it would go away.

  ‘Shoo!’ he muttered, although the word didn’t sound too effective through closed lips.

  Then it shifted to his shoulder and seemed to be eating something from behind his ear. He glimpsed white feathers and a yellow crest, and several things fell into place.

  I’ll kill her, he vowed, but the crowd was pointing and applauding and the other statues, though their shoulders were shaking with merriment, were holding their poses well.

  The parade ended in the large park near the showgrounds, where the town band was playing Christmas carols. Kate gave the order for them all to relax. The other statues gathered around Noah, all laughing and congratulating each other.

  ‘We got the loudest applause.’

  ‘People loved it.’

  ‘Did you see them clap and point?’

  ‘Jena said it should have been a pigeon but she couldn’t get a trained one. It’s her brother’s cocky and, more than anything else, he loves pumpkin seeds. That’s what she put in your hair.’

  It was Carla who explained the pertinent details, while Suzy found some spilled seed on the float and, using them, tempted the bird onto her arm.

  Noah looked around and saw Jena approaching, the empty cage dangling from her fingers.

  Even from that distance, he could read hesitancy in her walk.

  As well there might be!

  ‘Did you mind terribly?’ Jena asked as she came tentatively to his side.

  The people who’d followed the floats were gathering around, showering praise, laughing and joking, still taking merriment from the ‘bird on the statue’.

  Noah put his arm around her and drew her close, regardless of the body paint spreading liberally all over her clothes.

  ‘No way,’ he said, because in retrospect he hadn’t. ‘In fact, it was fun!’

  She turned and kissed him—hard.

  ‘So’s most of life,’ she whispered. ‘But, like love, we just have to work at it, and when we find it, treasure and enjoy it.’

  She looked up at him, lips smeared with silver paint.

  ‘We will have fun, won’t we?’

  He nodded solemnly.

  ‘And I worked it out,’ he said. ‘For fifty years we’d have to call it an eighteen-thousand-two-hundred-and-fifty-night stand, and that’s allowing a few nights off for leap years.’

  ‘I think that sounds good,’ she whispered, snuggling closer. ‘For starters!’

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-5677-7

  THE TEMPTATION TEST

  First North American Publication 2001

  Copyright © 2001 by Meredith Webber

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

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